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The purpose of this paper is to examine what the term sustainable fashion means from the perspective of micro-organisations, experts, and consumers.

This research is qualitative in nature, utilising a multi-methods case study approach (semi-structured interviews, semiotics, questionnaires). Grounded analysis was applied to analyse the data.

Findings indicate that interpretation of sustainable fashion is context and person dependent. A matrix of key criteria provides the opportunity to find common elements.

Due to the nature of this research the sample size is limited and may not be generalised. Data were collected in the UK and are limited to a geographical region.

An important implication is that defining sustainable fashion is vital in order to avoid challenges, such as greenwashing, which were faced in other industries that have a longer history in sustainable practices. Micro-organisations should take advantage of identifying key sustainable fashion criteria, which will enable them to promote their fashion collections more effectively.

The criteria identified provide assurance for consumers that sustainable fashion is produced with social aspects in mind (fair wages, good working conditions).

The paper proposes a matrix that allows micro-organisations to clearly identify their collections as sustainable.

This paper aims to analyse the practical applicability of integrated marketing communications (IMC) to micro-organisations operating in the UK’s fashion industry, focusing specifically on the use of online platforms.

Qualitative methodological tools including semi-structured interviews, semiotics, Twitterfeed and Facebook analysis are used to examine to what extent micro-organisations apply IMC.

The findings suggest that these micro-organisations have a limited understanding of IMC. Although they utilise various channels, including social media, there is a disconnect between reaching the audience, understanding their needs and linking these aspects. External factors influence the use of various communication channels, leading to further fragmentation of sent messages.

This research focuses on five micro-organisations within the fashion industry and thus may be seen as limited in nature. Whilst implications of the findings are discussed in terms of their impact to the wider industry and other sectors, this needs to be further researched.

Micro-organisations are underdeveloped in terms of both IMC and social media and require practical advice.

This study investigates two under-researched areas, IMC in micro-organisations and the use of social media within IMC, thereby moving forward our understanding of IMC in practice.

Seeking ways towards a sustainable future is the most dominant socio-political challenge of our time. Marketing should have a crucial role to play in leading research and impact in sustainability, yet it is limited by relying on cognitive behavioural theories rooted in the 1970s, which have proved to have little bearing on actual behaviour. This paper aims to interrogate why marketing is failing to address the challenge of sustainability and identify alternative approaches.

The constraint in theoretical development contextualises the problem, followed by a focus on four key themes to promote theory development: developing sustainable people; models of alternative consumption; building towards sustainable marketplaces; and theoretical domains for the future. These themes were developed and refined during the 2018 Academy of Marketing workshop on seeking sustainable futures. MacInnis’s (2011) framework for conceptual contributions in marketing provides the narrative thread and structure.

The current state of play is explicated, combining the four themes and MacInnis’s framework to identify the failures and gaps in extant approaches to the field.

This paper sets a new research agenda for the marketing discipline in quest for sustainable futures in marketing and consumer research.

Approaches are proposed which will allow the transformation of the dominant socio-economic systems towards a model capable of promoting a sustainable future.

The paper provides thought leadership in marketing and sustainability as befits the special issue, by moving beyond the description of the problem to making a conceptual contribution and setting a research agenda for the future.

This paper aims to identify the different types of food featured on children's television in the UK and how frequently they appear.

A content analysis of children's television across four popular UK channels (CBBC, CBeebies, CiTV, Five) was carried out in Autumn 2008. All output including programmes, advertisements, sponsorship, trailers and idents was examined for verbal and visual instances of food and drink. Food and drink mentions were classified according to food categories.

The results showed a high incidence of food across the different kinds of output and across the four channels. In programmes, food mentions were skewed towards healthy (68.7 per cent v. 31.3 per cent) rather than unhealthy foods. The most frequent categories of food were fruit and vegetables, desserts, and grains.

The findings presented here are based on four channels, and analysis of 84 hours of television content aimed at children. The study represents a qualitative picture based on a limited sample at a specific point in time.

The results demonstrate that Ofcom's latest UK guidelines on television advertising of HFSS foods are being adhered to during children's programmes, and question whether programming and other types of output offer a positive or negative view of food and whether they too require intervention.

The results widen the debate about obesity and television advertising by considering the importance of editorial content and other marketing communications in terms of food portrayal on children's television.

This preliminary investigation aims to examine the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on patients and staff within a high secure service.

To discern the connection between COVID-19-related distress and multiple factors, the study involved 31 patients and 34 staff who completed assessments evaluating coping strategies, resilience, emotional reactivity, ward atmosphere and work-related aspects.

Results demonstrated that around a third of staff (31.2%) experienced COVID-19-related distress levels that met the clinical cut-off for possible post-traumatic stress disorder. Emotional reactivity, staff shortages, secondary traumatic stress and coping strategies were all positively correlated with COVID-19-related-distress. Resilience was negatively associated with distress, thus acting as a potential mitigating factor. In comparison, the prevalence of distress among patients was low (3.2%).

The authors postulate that increased staff burdens during the pandemic may have led to long-term distress, while their efforts to maintain minimal service disruption potentially shielded patients from psychological impacts, possibly lead to staff “problem-focused coping burnout”. This highlights the need for in-depth research on the enduring impacts of pandemics, focusing on mechanisms that intensify or alleviate distress. Future studies should focus on identifying effective coping strategies for crisis situations, such as staff shortages, and strategies for post-crisis staff support.

The authors postulate that the added burdens on staff during the pandemic might have contributed to their distress. Nonetheless, staff might have inadvertently safeguarded patients from the pandemic’s psychological ramifications by providing a “service of little disruption”, potentially leading to “problem-focused coping burnout”. These findings underscore the imperative for further research capturing the enduring impacts of pandemics, particularly scrutinising factors that illuminate the mechanisms through which distress is either intensified or alleviated across different groups. An avenue worth exploring is identifying effective coping styles for pandemics.

Those seeking a new place to live – especially in the private rented sector – now head online to do so. The platforms they use and adverts they see are an important source of information about the properties they will occupy and how their owners’ seek to project them. This paper aims to argue for the importance of property adverts as a source of data, using “property guardianship” to illustrate the value in the approach.

The study draws on an analysis of 503 advertisements published on SpareRoom.co.uk – a leading property search engine – in July 2018.

The authors put forward four key areas of findings. The first two look at legal understanding, dealing with the context, the advertisement provides for eventual occupation (the “process of construction”) and any indications they provide of legal elements of occupation (“diagnostics”). The final two deal with the broader positioning of the sector, analysing the practice of excluding prospective occupiers, such as the widespread inclusion of “no Department of Social Security” seen elsewhere in the private rented sector, and how the adverts project a certain lifestyle to their viewer.

The findings demonstrate that further research into property advertisements would be valuable, particularly into other sub-markets in the private-rented sector, such as student accommodation and “professional” lets.

This study is the only analysis of property guardian advertisements and the first dedicated study of private rented sector advertisements in the UK.

The growing numbers of older people represent an important market segment for retailers, particularly the food retail sector. The dominance of the food multiples and their growth strategies have been criticised for contributing to some older consumers being disadvantaged. This paper considers the satisfaction levels of older consumers in Scotland, with their food‐shopping experience. Drawing upon previous work by the author which identified the factors influencing satisfaction, 220 volunteers were recruited from various locations in Scotland and interviewed using a structured questionnaire. The survey focused on the main shopping trip. Results indicate that, whilst there is a general trend towards satisfaction, there are key areas of dissatisfaction, such as aspects of the products for sale (merchandise), the practices and procedures of the retailer (retail practices) and factors in the community which affected the shopping trip (external shopping factors). This suggests that policy‐makers seeking to encourage the participation of food retailers in health promotion need to recognise vulnerable sub‐groups of the older population and recognise that not all older consumers can signal their preferences in the marketplace.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how business‐to‐business (BTB) relationships may be developed through direct marketing (DM) in the context of a Portuguese training organization.

Semi‐structured interviews (30) are undertaken, including 24 training directors and six participants from 30 different organizations. A grounded theory approach as used in data analysis is employed.

Two key roles of DM emerged from the paper: to establish a relationship between customers and training companies, this being dependent on the relevance of DM to the recipients' jobs/activities combined with the credibility of the DM source; and DM has a conditional role in the relationship development between customers and training companies. DM only has a role in developing relationships if the received DM is relevant to customers' training needs combined with positive perceptions of the past training performance in customers' minds. These perceptions are linked to quality and satisfaction, customers making an immediate association between the DM source and past training performance.

Customers want to receive DM from training companies which is relevant to their professional interests. These customers desire further follow‐up and diagnosis from training providers than is currently the case. Training providers are thus losing market opportunities. Further dialogue and interaction between companies and customers is necessary.

There has been limited empirical study of the processes and activities of DM in developing relationships in BTB contexts using a qualitative approach around customers' experiences.

The number and proportion of older people in the UK are increasing and it has been found that this population segment is a nutritional risk group. Food choice research and health promotion reports have sought to identify the influences on diet and the food retailing sector has been found to particularly impact upon older people. Low income, poor mobility and an inability to access food shops disadvantage many. This paper considers the food shopping experiences of older consumers by identifying, through critical incident technique, positive and negative aspects of the food shopping activity. A total of 120 interviews were conducted and 248 incidents collected from people aged 60/65+ in various locations in Scotland. Content analysis produced eight primary categories and 22 sub‐categories of key elements in the shopping experience. The main factors that contribute to the quality of the shopping experience were merchandise related, retail practices and staff issues. The internal store environment, accessibility, external shopping environment and personal factors were also identified and featured both positive and negative incidents, with social aspects only having positive incidents.